The 29-year-old made an attack over the top of the field in the final lap, dropping the rest of the riders and taking victory by a margin of 0.382 seconds from Colombia’s Fabian Hernando Puerta Zapata.

Rounding out the podium at the Hong Kong Velodrome was Czech Republic’s Tomas Babek, who finished 0.417 seconds off the pace.

Awang’s gold medal comes after he had to settle for bronze at the previous two editions of the event, held in French town Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 2015 and London in 2016.

He accounts for five of the six medals Malaysia has won at the Track World Championships.

The Asian nation was one of four countries to win gold today along with Australia, Poland and the United States.

Australia’s title came in the men’s team pursuit as the quartet of Sam Welsford, Cameron Meyer, Alexander Porter and Nicholas Yallouris clocked a winning time of 3 min 51.503sec.

A surge in the last 1,000 meters of the final saw the Australian team, which had come within 0.3 seconds of the world record in an earlier round, beat rivals New Zealand’s Regan Gough, Pieter Bulling, Dylan Kennett and Nicholas Kergozou by 2.476 seconds.

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